Abstract

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a common
cardiac disease which leads to the deterioration in cardiac
performance. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach
can be used to enhance our understanding of the disease, by
providing us with a detailed map of the intraventricular flow
and pressure distributions. In the present work, effect of
ventricular size on the intraventricular flow dynamics and
intraventricular pressure gradients (IVPGs) was studied using
two different implementation methods, i.e. the
geometry-prescribed and the fluid structure interaction (FSI)
methods. Results showed that vortex strength and IVPGs are
significantly reduced in a dilated heart, leading to an increased
risk of thrombus formation and impaired ventricular filling. We
suggest FSI method as the ultimate method in studying
ventricular dysfunction as it provides additional cardiac disease
prognostic factors and more realistic model implementation.